“You see,” he said, as a companionable crowd of horsemen gathered around him, and passed around the cigar box, as a sign that a story was about to begin, “I had been courting down in that state and made up my mind that I wanted to marry a blue-eyed, pretty daughter of old Major Blank, and I had about half way convinced the girl that she wanted to marry me, when this infernal non-swimming horse had about upset the whole thing. I hadn’t seen the girl for about a month, so I boarded the cars one bright day in February for a short visit. I took precaution to get the best ring I could find in Nashville within my means—I knew the fit of her finger pretty well—and I was as dead certain of leaving that ring in Alabama on the fourth finger of a dimpled hand as I am to-day that little Robert J. could pace round a draft horse. “I stopped at a small town, ten miles from where she lived in the country, at the house of a friend of mine, for I had to hire a buggy and drive through to the Major’s, as he lived off the railroad. According to agreement, the young lady had written me a letter to that point, telling me how glad they all would be to see me, accenting the “all,” and ending up with a message that made my heart beat like a thumped horse, and enclosing a bunch of violets tied with a few _deshabille_ strands of her own sunset hair. By the way, this was in February as I remarked, but what was the name of that poet that said, ‘love comes like a summer’s sigh?’ “Well, that letter made it July with me.